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The following description of this image is from 'The Great Room Paintings The Progress of Human Knowledge & Culture by James Barry' an abridged version of 'An Account of a series of pictures in the Great Room of the Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce at the Adelphi' written by James Barry in 1783. "It has been my wish to represent Orpheus as he really was, the founder of Grecian theology, uniting the same character the legislator, the divine, the philosopher and the poet, as well as the musician. I have therefore placed him in a wild and savage country, surrounded by people as savage as their soil, to whom he (as a messenger from the Gods, and under all the energies of enthusiasm) is pouring forth those songs of instruction which he accompanies, in the closes, with the music of his lyre.The hearers of Orpheus, who are in what is called the state of nature, a state far short of the golden age some have unwisely imagined, are most of them armed with clubs, and clad in the spoils of wild beasts, with courageand strength to subdue lions and tigers, but without wisdom and skill to prevent frequent retaliation onthemselves and their more feeble offspring. At some distance on the other side of the river [right], is a woman milking a goat, and two children sitting in the entrance of their habitation, a cave, where they are but poorly fenced against the lion, who discovers them as he is prowling about for prey; a little farther in the distance, are two horses, one run down by a tiger, by which I wished to point out, that the want of human culture is an evilwhich extends even beyond our own species. In the woman with the dead fawn over her shoulder, and leaningon her male companion, I wished to glance at a matter often observed by travellers, which is, that the valueand estimation of a women increases according to the growth and cultivation of society.As Orpheus taught the use of letters, the theogony or generation of the gods, and the worship that was dueto them, I have placed before him papers showing the mundane egg [left], a lamb bound, a fire kindled, andother materials of sacrifice [right], to which his song may be supposed preparatory. These circumstances leadus into the second picture, which consists of some of the religious rites established by those doctrinal songs of Orpheus." -- www.rsa.org.uk